


The Lessons You Learn

by Duck_Life



Series: Lab Rats: Home Again [2]
Category: Lab Rats (TV 2012), Lab Rats: Elite Force (TV)
Genre: Back to School, F/F, Family, Family Bonding, Future Fic, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Bree moves back into her childhood home, this time with a brand-new wife and a trouble-making little sister to look after. The Davenport-Storms try to juggle regular jobs, saving the world, and taking care of Naomi and her rambunctious cousin Toni. Continuation of "I Can Hear the Bells," set about 12 years after Elite Force.





	1. Back to the Creek

Skylar strides through the front door with Bree in her arms. "Welcome to your new-old home, _Mrs._ Davenport-Storm," she says with a flourish, spinning her wife around.

"Why, thank you, _Mrs._ Davenport-Storm," Bree answers, giddy.

"Absolutely, Mrs. Davenport-Storm." Skylar leans in and kisses her as Bree's hands twine up around her neck.

"We get it, you're married," Naomi grumbles, stalking through the door with Skylar and Bree's suitcases in tow. "It's getting old."

Bree hops down from Skylar's arms as Skylar asks her, "How did you convince your dad to let us come and live here rent-free, anyway?"

"Oh, I told him I would pay rent and a half," Bree says. "He was gonna do it, too. Then Tasha told him to stop being an assho-" she glances at Naomi- " _jerkface_ , and he caved."

With that, she zooms out to the car to get more of their bags. "So, are you excited to pick out a bedroom?" Skylar asks her new little sister-in-law.

Naomi shrugs. "I guess," she says. "I kind of liked the basement. I had my own mini-fridge down there."

Bree comes back in carrying a duffel bag and a suitcase. "What?" she squawks. "Adam's gonna be furious."

"Naomi, why don't you go get some of your stuff from downstairs?" Skylar says, taking a bag from Bree. "We can start getting settled in." She and Bree head to the car to bring more stuff in while Naomi skips to the elevator and hits the button for the lab.

* * *

The familiar hum of the house calms Naomi. It's all new- living with her sister and Skylar, starting high school, living upstairs. She's looking down the barrel at a lot of adjustments.

The basement, at least, is familiar. Her dad's gadgets and gizmos still whirr and blink, and the monitors that line the walls all greet her with their familiar green glow. There are her posters, there are her books, there are her toys- and there, lounging in her beanbag chair, is her cousin Toni.

"Oh, hi," Toni says, not even bothering to look guilty. "You're back! How was Britain?"

Bree, Skylar and Naomi had journeyed to London with Tasha and Donald to see the sights and help them get moved in before coming back to stay in Mission Creek. "British," Naomi says. "What are you doing here?"

Toni shrugs and returns to her comic book. "Sometimes I come hang out here when I'm bored," she says like it's no big deal. "Your dad has the coolest crap."

Naomi scowls and goes to lift Toni out of the beanbag with force. "How do you even get in?" she says, fussing with her cousin, who stubbornly tries to cling to the beanbag chair. "We have the most sophisticated smart home security system on the planet."

"Hi, I'm Toni Dooley," Toni says cheekily, extending a hand. "I thought we'd met."

At that moment, Eddy fizzles to life on a panel in the wall. "Your little devil cousin hacked into my server," he whines to Naomi. "And she got cracker crumbs in one of my USB ports."

Naomi glares at Toni, who goes boneless and sinks back into the beanbag with a triumphant look. "You hacked Eddy?"

"Yeah, but I thought he'd be out of commission for longer," Toni sighs. "I was looking forward to some peace and quiet."

"You can get peace and quiet in your own home," Naomi points out, giving up on removing Toni from the beanbag chair and instead trying to drag her and the beanbag toward the door. "And don't mess with Eddy. He's my friend."

"Yeah, about that, how exactly did you manage to make friends with the most _evil_ smart home security system on the planet?"

She smirks. "Hi, I'm Naomi Davenport. I thought we'd met." Toni rolls her eyes. "I can be friends with anyone. I can be friends with a bear. I can be friends with a cast member from _Friends_. I can be friends with _you_ , and you're the most stubborn, patience-devouring person I've ever known." Naomi grunts as she tries to drag the beanbag across the floor of the basement. "Get up!"

"Make me," Toni says, arms crossed.

A glint of mischief crosses Naomi's face. "Eddy?" she says. "A little help?"

"Ooh, I was hoping you'd ask," the scheming little emoticon says, and with that, the panel in the floor dissolves and Toni, beanbag and all, drops. "Ta-ta, Toni! See you next fall!"

Peering over the side, Naomi laughs and waves. And then Bree and Skylar walk into the lab. "Hey, whatcha doing?" Bree says.

Naomi immediately straightens up and says, at the same time as Eddy, "Nothin'."

"Uh-huh," Skylar says, quirking an eyebrow up. She steps forward and looks down into the gaping hole in the floor. "Hi, Toni!"

"Hi, Mrs. Davenport-Storm," Toni calls up. "Can you help me up?"

"Oh, right." Skylar jumps down without a second thought and flies back up toting Toni and the beanbag chair. "And you can just call me Skylar."

"Thanks, Skylar," Toni says, looking a little awestruck. "Gotta say, this is still so weird."

"What?" Bree says. "Us being married?"

"No, _you_ being married to a real _superhero_ ," Toni says. "Skylar, I've read all your comic books. And now you're gonna be living here _all the time_? W-o-w. Naomi, you're so lucky."

Bree coughs. "Um, I'm a _bionic_ hero," she reminds the girls.

Toni doesn't look impressed. "Call me when you're in the comics," she says, and flounces off. "Naomi, if you need help packing and unpacking… get someone else."

"Love you too," Naomi says, rolling her eyes as she turns to Bree and Skylar. "Apparently, she hangs out here when no one's home."

"Oh great," Bree says tonelessly. "Crappy security. Just what we need."

"It's just Toni," Skylar says, grabbing the beanbag chair off the floor. "Naomi, you want this upstairs?"

Naomi sighs. "Do I really have to leave the basement?" she says. "This is my room. This is my home."

Skylar looks helplessly to Bree, who steps toward her sister and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Just try a real room for a little bit," she says. "A month. If you decide after that that you want to live back down here, you can. But I really want you to try."

Naomi can tell it might be more for Bree than for her. And she's willing to put up with anything for her big sister. "Okay," she says, smiling a little. "Skylar, can you help me with my bed?"

 


	2. First Day at Mission Creek High School

The rapping on her capsule startles Bree awake, and she squints open her eyes to see Naomi's face pressed up against the glass. "Bree," she says, muffled through the capsule. "Bree, wake up." Naomi hits the button to make the door slide down and she tugs her sister out of her capsule. "Wake up, Bree. It's the first day of school."

"Mm, I don't wanna go to school," Bree mumbles, slow on her feet. "Just let me sleep."

"No, it's _my_ first day of school."

Bree yawns and then focuses, more alert now, on Naomi. "Oh. Right. Of course it is."

* * *

 

Skylar's got breakfast in the works downstairs, bacon sizzling and scrambled eggs heaped on a plate. "Good morning," she says, waving to Bree and Naomi. "Got your backpack?"

"Yep," Naomi says, twirling around to show it off. "And my notebooks, and my pens, and my calculator, and my cell phone."

Skylar glances over at Bree. "She's bringing her phone to school?"

"She needs it!" Bree insists, toying with the straps of Naomi's backpack. "What if there's a horrible emergency? What if she gets abducted? What if she gets bored?"

Naomi digs into her plate of eggs and bacon. "I won't play with my phone in class, Skylar," she says. "I promise. Unless there's a horrible emergency. Or I get really, really bored."

"Good to know," Skylar says, narrowing her eyes, but she drops the subject. "Bree? Are you dropping her off in your jammies?"

Bree grabs a plate of food and looks down at her soft sleep pants and shirt. "Why not?" she shrugs, brushing tangled hair out of her eyes. "I'm not getting out of the car."

"Yes, you are, because we need to drop off these cans for the school food drive," Skylar reminds her, pointing to three cans of green beans she stacked on the counter. "Didn't you get the PTA email about it?"

Bree stares incredulously at her wife. "Are we part of the PTA?"

"Bree," Skylar says in a warning tone. "Can you please try to help me out here?"

"Well, I thought I was, but you need to tell me stuff."

Eddy pops up on a panel by the refrigerator. "Ooh, trouble in paradise," he cheers. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Naomi shushes Eddy. "Shut up," she says, and then turns to her sister and sister-in-law. " _Are_ you gonna fight?"

Bree looks at Skylar. "Are we?"

"No, no," Skylar assures Bree, Naomi and Eddy. "No, babe, just… just come over here." And Skylar drags her out of the kitchen and down the hall, leaving Naomi behind to finish her breakfast. Skylar leads Bree out of earshot of the kitchen and then steps back to face her. "Look," she says, "I really don't want to nag or anything. It's just… I barely got to go to high school, and when I did, I didn't have anybody looking over my shoulder, making my lunches, going to PTA meetings. I mean, I had Horace, but he doesn't really count. I want to be that for Naomi. And I was hoping that's what you wanted too."

Bree looks at her like she's trying to figure her out, and then kisses her. "It is what I want," Bree promises. "I'm just a little lost. Everything's all new to me, too."

"Then we do it together," Skylar says, taking her hand. "And from now on, I'll try to keep you updated on all the emails from the school."

"Good," Bree says, holding up her phone. "'Cause I get like fifty-nine of those things a day, I don't read more than a quarter of them."

"You can unsubscribe to all those shopping catalogues," Skylar advises as they move back through the halls toward the kitchen.

"But I need them," Bree defends, crunching down on a piece of bacon. "How else am I gonna know when there's a sale at Forever 21?"

Skylar turns around and smirks at her. "Because you'll see a stampede of girls who are _12 years younger than you_."

"How dare you," Bree says, but her tone is joking. "Naomi, look at me." She strikes a pose. "How old do you think I look?"

Eddy pipes up, " _I_ think you look-"

"Eddy!" Naomi snaps. "Bree, you look fine. Now can we please go to school?"

"'Fine' is not a number, little Gnome," Bree says airily, but she shakes her head and laughs. "I'm gonna get dressed. Be right back." With a flash she's gone, and with a flash she's back, dressed in cuffed jeans and a pink top, her hair flawlessly curled.

Skylar gives her a look. "Little Gnome?" she inquires.

"When Toni was little she couldn't say Naomi's name," Bree explains. "Called her Gnomey. So now we all call her Gnomey."

"Correction, just you," Naomi says, scowling. "And for the record, I don't like it."

"Okay, Gnomey," Skylar says, rinsing Naomi and Bree's plates off in the sink. "Let's go to school."

* * *

Bree superspeeds with Skylar and Naomi to Mission Creek High and drops Naomi off. "Okay, be good," Bree says, waving goodbye. "Don't set the mascot on fire. Don't challenge your principal to a football game. And if you _think_ you witness a lunch lady get murdered… just know you probably misunderstood."

"Got it," Naomi says, giving her a thumbs up and a weird look. She runs toward the school with the rest of the students. They see her bump into Toni just inside the doors before she vanishes from view.

Bree glances at her wife. "Are you crying?"

"No," Skylar says, blinking repeatedly as her eye waters. "While we were running I think a bug flew into my eye. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a momentous occasion and I'm very emotional, but, uh, yeah, a bug very much did actually fly into my eye."

"Let me see," Bree says, grabbing Skylar's face and trying to get a good look at the foreign object currently making her tear up. "Let me get it." So Bree's trying to rub insect gunk out of her wife's eye when she hears the teacher acting as bus attendant call her name.

"Bree Davenport?"

Bree whirls around as Skylar blinks furiously to clear her vision. "What? What'd I do?"

A man with brown hair in a large paint-splattered smock waves at her and starts walking toward them. "Wow, you look great! Effervescent! Phosphorescent! I haven't seen you since you left to go to that 'bionic island' or whatever."

"Um, Bree?" Skylar says, glancing between her wife and the teacher. "Who's that?"

Bree swallows a lump in her throat, looking uncomfortable. "My ex."

Owen finishes his trek across the parking lot and pulls Bree into a hug, and she's pretty sure she comes away with acrylic paint stuck to her shirt. "It's so good to see you," he says. "Which one of these talented young minds is yours?"

He's looking over at the horde of students pouring through the front doors. "The little one with the big hair," Bree says. "Is mine. Sister. She's my baby sister. I'm sort of raising her for the moment. I don't have any kids, though. I mean I'm married. To a girl. It's her." She jerks a thumb toward Skylar. "Say hi, Skylar."

"Hi, Skylar," Skylar repeats, looking as rattled as Bree.

"It's good to meet you," Owen says, enthusiastically shaking Skylar's hand. "If you don't mind me saying, you're incredibly beautiful. Bree always did have an eye for art."

Bree's jaw drops behind Owen's back and Skylar shoots her a surprised- but not unhappy- look. "So, Owen, what are you doing here?"

He laughs. "What do you think? I'm the art teacher."

"Of course you are," Bree says.

"What about you?" says Owen. "What do you do?"

Bree looks like she's having trouble answering so Skylar jumps in for her. "She writes," Skylar says. "Magazine pieces, short stories… lots of stuff. She's really good."

"I'll have to read some of your stuff one of these days," Owen says. "But first, I need to wrangle these little rascals. It was good to see you!" He walks away waving and Bree waves back, wondering why exactly going home again feels so bizarre.

* * *

Up in their bedroom, Skylar wrestles with the mattress cover. "Hey, Bree?" she calls, trying to wedge a corner of the fitted sheet around the mattress. "Um, did you try to make the bed?"

"Yep," Bree says, flouncing into the room with her old high school yearbook under one arm. "You are welcome."

"'Try' being the operative word," Skylar points out, throwing a pillow down on the bed. "This is a disaster."

Bree shrugs and flops down on the bed. "I sleep in a glass tube, what do you expect?" she says. "I can't make a bed but I'm _very_ good with Windex. Call me when you need that." She flips open her yearbook to a page featuring a big sketch of some wiggly lines and a big smiley face. "Look, this is how Owen signed my yearbook."

"Hm," says Skylar.

"I think it's supposed to be abstract art," Bree remembers. "But I don't know what of. Isn't that funny?"

"Hm," says Skylar.

Bree eyes her carefully and then a devilish grin spreads across her face. "Oh my gosh, are you jealous?"

"No," Skylar says, but she's not looking at Bree.

"You're jealous!" Bree exclaims, clambering backward on the bed and laughing. "I made you jealous."

"Get off the comforter," Skylar tells her half-heartedly.

"No," Bree says, making herself as inconvenient as possible.

"You're like a cat."

" _Mrow_."

"Don't," Skylar says, but she crashes down on the bed beside Bree, looking at her sideways before pushing herself up and rolling over on top of her. "So you've got a thing for artists, huh?"

"No," Bree says, smiling. "I've got a thing for _you._ "

"Oh, really?" Skylar says, leaning down and peppering a line of kisses across Bree's cheek leading to her lips. She kisses her on the mouth. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Bree says breathily. "We should run into my ex-boyfriends more often if this is gonna be your reaction. I think Troy West is buried in a junkyard in LA."

"Troy West?" Skylar says. "The actor?"

"He was a robot," Bree says, "I killed him. Don't worry about it."

Skylar laughs. "I just… wasn't expecting to run into your ex here in Mission Creek. I mean, all my exes are on Caldera or in prison or… well, you know. Oliver."

"Yeah, it's weird to see him," Bree says. "I guess high school really _does_ never end."

"I know what you mean," Skylar says. "One time Kaz and I accidentally set off this time loop machine at Logan High and we had to live the same day over and over again. Like in _Groundhog Day_."

Bree rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and leans up to kiss Skylar again. "You know that's not what I meant, goof."

The bed doesn't get made and Skylar doesn't get off of Bree- until Bree's phone rings. "I got it," Skylar says, reaching over to the bedside table and answering the phone. "Hello?" Bree can't make out the voice on the other end of the line but they don't sound happy. "She _what_? Oh… okay. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm so sorry… Yes, we'll be right there." She clicks the "end call" button and looks down at Bree. "Naomi got in a fight."

Bree stares at her phone and then at Skylar. "Well did she win?"


	3. Blast from the Past

Back at Mission Creek High much sooner than expected, Skylar mills around in the lobby while Bree circles the room pointing out hers and her brothers' old lockers and telling various half-anecdotes. "And that's where Leo got crushed by the beam… and that's where I got glued to my locker… and that's where the hot tub used to be…"

Skylar, meanwhile, paces and panics as she wonders how to deal with Naomi. Discipline is important, she read that in a parenting listicle online. But what kind? How much? And what if she supports the fight Naomi got in? After all, she's been in plenty of scraps, as Skylar Storm and as Connie Valentine. How can she punish Naomi if the kid was just doing something she's done countless times?

Skylar decides she just needs the full story. And she's about to get it. A secretary pokes her head out the door of the main office. "Principal Perry would like to see you now."

Bree whirls around, face suddenly white. "Perry? What is she doing here?"

The secretary looks bored. "She works here, ma'am," she says dully before vanishing once again.

Bree looks pale. "I cannot deal with this," she whispers to Skylar as they walk toward the office like they're walking toward their own executions. "I thought for sure Perry was in Canada touring with her Sumo group. What is she doing here?"

At that moment, a short brunette with severe bangs sticks her head out of her office and barks, "Hurry up, Slowpoke Sallies, I don't have all day!"

As Skylar and Bree scurry into the principal's office, Bree breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank God," she murmurs to her wife, "it's not Principal Perry."

"Guess again, Mom Jeans," the woman says as she slides behind her desk. She scowls at Bree and holds up her nameplate as proof: Principal Kerry Perry. Bree recognizes her now, all grown up and just as vicious. Perry's niece. The littlest nightmare Bree ever dealt with.

"Y-you're the principal now?" she chokes out, barely registering Naomi and the boy sitting in chairs in front of Kerry's desk.

"You bet your monobrow I am," Kerry sneers, hitting a lever on her office chair so that she rises higher. "Go ahead and sit down," she says, gesturing to three extra seats beside the students. "I caught this little miscreant violently assaulting another student."

"Naomi would never do that," Bree says defensively before glancing at her sister. "Did you do that?"

Naomi bites her lip. "Well, kind of."

"C'mon, work with me here," she whines before sinking into a seat next to Skylar. "Kerry, just tell us what happened. And be fair. And tell the truth."

"You're making too many unrealistic demands," Kerry sighs theatrically. "Technically, we're still waiting on this innocent victim's father, but-"

"He is not innocent," Naomi interjects, glaring from the boy next to her to the principal. "He was kicking the crap out of Thomas McGill."

"A likely story," Kerry says. "Unfortunately for you, there are no witnesses."

Skylar raises her hand like she's in a class. "Um, Thomas McGill? Might be a witness?"

Kerry glares at her. "Yes, well, he went home with a head cold."

"He doesn't have a cold, he's got a black eye," Naomi says, popping out of her seat like she's got half a mind to lunge across the desk toward Kerry Perry. Skylar grabs her by the shoulder and hauls her back into her chair. "This isn't fair."

"Life isn't fair," Skylar says automatically. "So, ah, Mrs. Principal Perry…" Kerry shoots her an odd look. "I mean. Your Honor. Your Most Honorable Principal, ma'am, what, um, allegedly, did Naomi do?"

"She ran across the cafeteria and shoved Brent here into a wall," Kerry explains, gesturing to the boy in the room. He continues to sulk sullenly in his chair and says nothing. "It came out of nowhere-"

"He was messing with Thomas," Naomi says. "I didn't shove him into a wall, I shoved him away from the kid he was pummeling. And then he pulled my hair!"

"Yes, Brent did react in a very natural act of self-defense-"

"My _hair_ didn't do anything to him!"

At that moment, as Bree and Skylar try to mentally sort out the chaos, Kerry's secretary sticks her head in the office. "Ma'am, the boy's father is here."

"Excellent," Kerry says. "Send him in."

Bree glances at Brent, the kid she hasn't really paid attention to yet. He's got dark brown hair and a stocky build. She wonders who his dad is.

And then his dad walks in the room, and Bree stops wondering. "Oh my God," she groans. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

"Whoa, blast from the past," Trent says, looking her up and down. "Dooley's sister! Man, you got old." Trent smirks at her and drops into a chair next to his son, balancing on the back legs. "So what'd my little angel get in trouble for this time?"

"This weird girl's trying to say I was beating up a kid named Thomas," Brent rolls off, suddenly talkative. "But I don't know a kid named Thomas! Alls I know is some prissy guy who took the last piece of cornbread in the cafeteria."

"So you punched him?"

"I might have!"

Trent looks at Kerry. "Well, as long as that's cleared up," he says, trying to be charming. Kerry stares him down until he sits again. "What? What's wrong?"

"Well, while I see violence as a form of character building," Kerry says irritably, "the school board frowns upon it. And that means Brent gets _de-ten-tion_." She sings the last word.

Bree sags against the back of the chair. "At least she's being a little fair," she mumbles to Skylar. Kerry, apparently, hears her.

" _And so does Na-o-mi_ ," she says in the same sing-song tune.

"For what?" Skylar says, standing up in a fit of righteous annoyance. "She was defending another student."

"She was _threatening_ a student," Kerry argues, standing up as well. "This isn't about Tommy Whatshisface McGooley, this is about Naomi and Brent."

"Really?" Skylar says, and the fire that lights up her eyes reminds Bree of the way she used to strike down criminals in their Elite Force days. "Because it seems like it's about you and this weird little grudge you have against my family. Naomi's not getting a detention."

"I'll give you a detention," Kerry threatens. "Can I do that?"

Trent says, "Yes!" at the same time Naomi says, "No!"

"I'm not gonna stand here and watch you treat Naomi like a criminal when she was behaving in a way that is kind, in a way that is courageous-"

"Oh my God, just shut up, Caped Crusader," Kerry groans, giving up and sinking into her office chair. "Fine. Detention for Brent. And for Naomi… cafeteria clean-up duty." Skylar's eyes flash. "What do you want? She's not getting off scot-free. I'm not running a zoo here. Except on Sundays. Don't tell animal control."

"We'll take it," Bree says, standing up and grabbing Skylar's elbow before she gets into an actual war with the school principal. "Come on, Naomi. Let's go home."

The three of them step as fast as they can out of the principal's office and head for the doors and freedom. Behind her, Skylar can hear Kerry issue Brent his detention days and dismiss him and his father. When Skylar and Naomi get outside, though, Bree turns around. "I'll be right out," she says. "I need to have a little, uh, high school reunion."

She's gone for about two minutes, and when she comes back she looks marginally more satisfied. "Okey-dokey," she says, grinning as she grabs Naomi's hand. "Let's go home."

* * *

Naomi's hair is a wreck.

Not because of Bree superspeeding her home- no, that she's gotten used to. And hair's very important to Bree. She knows how to run in a smooth pattern, ducking between the jetstreams to avoid tangles and knots.

Naomi's hair is a wreck because that neanderthal Brent yanked out a sizable chunk of it during their scuffle. After they get home, Bree and Skylar go to the kitchen to figure out dinner while Naomi wanders upstairs. Instead of going to her new bedroom, though, she stops in front of one of the hall mirrors.

There it is- a sad little gap in her otherwise luxurious locks. Her scalp stings. Infuriatingly, she feels tears spring to her eyes. It's just hair, she tells herself. It grows back. But the memory of watching Brent beat up some defenseless kid, the helplessness, the pain and fear she felt when Brent reared up and _pulled_ … Naomi wipes at her eyes and goes running for Bree and Skylar's bedroom.

When she was little and her parents would take her to the island or to Centium City, she used to do this when she got upset, crawl into Adam's capsule, or Chase's or Bree's. Part of it was, for some reason, she used to think that the glass was one-way when she was in it. She thought she could see out but no one could see her. It didn't make sense- she could definitely see her siblings when they were sleeping, and she had to have known that then- but the feeling remained.

And it was more than that. Despite all of her father's esteemed technology and cleaning protocols, the capsules always retained a little bit of their tenant. Adam's smelled like chocolate and always had a stuffed animal or two tucked into the bottom. Chase's smelled like soap and the dry-erase markers he used to write little notes and equations on the inside of the glass. Naomi used to sit with her legs crossed and read all of her brother's rambling math and science, trying to make sense of it.

Naomi climbs into Bree's capsule and shrinks down to the floor, pulling her knees into her chest. It smells like flowery shampoo, and Bree's pajamas are folded neatly (probably by Skylar) on the bottom. Naomi counts to three and then she pulls out her cell phone and calls her mom.

"Hey, girl," Tasha says the moment she answers the phone, and her voice is like a balm. Naomi hadn't realized how much she missed her parents. "How's the Creek?"

And Naomi tells her everything.

* * *

Bree goes looking for Naomi once Skylar's done with the grilled cheese sandwiches. She tries Naomi's new bedroom and the lab basement, but no such luck. When she finally ducks into her own room on a whim, she's only a little surprised to find Naomi curled up at the bottom of her capsule.

"Hey," Bree says, letting the door slide up. "What's up?"

Naomi looks at her, all wide eyes and worry lines. "Nothing," she lies. "Just… thinking."

"Uh-huh," Bree says, and then extends a hand to help her up. "C'mon." Bree leads her little sister to the bed and sits down before hugging her from behind. "I'm sorry your first day was a total disaster."

Naomi fidgets. "It wasn't a _total_ disaster," she says. "I liked history class. And art class. And I got to have lunch with Toni." She sighs. "I guess that's over now."

"Yeah, Kerry's kind of a monster," Bree sighs. "We'll deal with it." She looks down at the top of Naomi's head, finding the place where Brent ripped her hair out. "I need to learn how to do your hair."

"Oh, I can do it," Naomi tells her. "It's not a problem."

"Yeah, but I should learn," Bree says stubbornly. Chase, Adam, and Leo all have different hair than her but she at least knows what to do with it. As a kid, Bree used to try out hairstyles on Chase and Adam (Adam loved experimenting; Chase always went to the sink afterward and spiked his hair back up to normal.) On the island, Bree took over cutting Leo's hair. She should learn how to do Naomi's.

"What did you talk to Brent's dad about?" Naomi asks her suddenly, picturing Bree turning and running back into the school.

"Oh," Bree says, her fingers suddenly stilling in Naomi's hair. "Oh, you know. I told him I was glad we could sort things out peaceably, like adults." She laughs dryly. "And then I charged up a proton ring and threw it into the wall. Just so he knows."

Naomi snickers and leans around to hug her big sister. "Thanks, Bree."

"Anytime, Gnomey," Bree says, hugging her back. "Now let's go get some grilled cheese."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all are enjoying this so far. Sound off in the comments to let me know what you think about Kerry and Trent showing up. Poor Bree! Thanks for reading.


	4. The Bake Sale

Naomi and Toni show up after school one day just a second too late to catch Bree flipping a couch cushion to hide the chocolate sauce stain on the other side. “Hey girls,” she greets them, smile too wide. “How was school?”

Naomi says, “Good,” at the same time that Toni moans, “ _ Awful, _ ” and flops down on the couch. “This cushion feels weird.”

“What are you, the princess and the pea?” Bree grumbles, flopping down into a chair as Naomi discards her backpack and joins her cousin on the couch. “What exactly was so  _ awful _ about it?”

“Toni’s ticked off because we have to make stuff for the bake sale,” Naomi replies, peeling off her shoes and socks and kicking them aside. 

“Naomi,” Bree says, glancing at the shoes and socks. 

Naomi looks surprised. “Right,” she says, clearing the mess. She sticks her rolled-up socks in her backpack and lines her shoes up neatly by the door. “I forgot you can do Mom Voice now.”

“I’ve been doing Mom Voice since before you were born, Little Gnome,” Bree says, smirking at her. “And what’s so bad about a bake sale?” 

“No gluten,” Toni says. 

“No nuts,” Naomi adds.

“No sugar.”

“No dairy.”

“No eggs.”

“No salt.”

“No fun!” Toni concludes, dramatically flinging her hands upward. “I mean, we might as well be having one of those little kid tea parties and serving everybody  _ air _ . Kids these days are  _ weak _ .”

“They just have allergies,” says Bree.

“When I was a kid, people just ate what was there and they didn’t throw a fit,” says Toni.

Bree squints at her. “Toni, you were a kid last week.”

She sighs theatrically. “This whole ordeal has aged me.” 

Naomi rolls her eyes and starts tugging her textbooks out of her backpack. Bree looks between the two of them and asks, “Why is the school even having a bake sale?”

“Oh, we have to have one every year,” Naomi says. “For fundraising. It’s super boring but it’s traditional, or whatever.”

“Why can’t the school do something different?” Bree says. “Like a concert? Or a party or something? Ooh, you could invite special celebrity guests.” She coughs. “Like a certain super-bionic dynamic duo?” 

“Not gonna happen,” Toni says. “This kid Michael’s mom is head of the PTA and she’s super strict. We’re not gonna do anything even a little bit differently than we did last year, or the year before that, or the year before that, or the year before--”

“I get it,” Bree says. “And that’s just… silly. Change is good.”

“Is that why you’re living in your childhood home and haven’t changed your hair since 2014?” Toni says. 

Bree shoots her a warning look. “No,  _ that’s _ why I’m joining the PTA. And I’m gonna tell Michael’s mom that it’s time to shake it up. Now. When is the next PTA meeting?”

Naomi glances at the oven clock. “It started five minutes ago.”

“Oh.”

“You’d better hurry,” Naomi says. 

Bree jumps out of her chair and grabs her purse. “Fortunately,” she says, “‘hurry’ is my middle name.” And she jets.

“Lucky,” Toni mumbles, folding her homework into a cootie catcher. “Mine’s ‘Marie.’”

* * *

 

Bree gets to Mission Creek High less than a minute later and jets toward the gym where they’re holding the meeting. She slips in, trying to go undetected, but then the PTA president stops midway through a speech about the evils of gluten to stare at her. “Oh my God,  _ Bree _ ?”

Bree goes invisible. It’s a reflex. 

“Bree,” Caitlin laughs, abandoning her podium to run through the gymnasium toward her. “Wow, still as weird as ever.”

“Oops, sorry,” Bree fake-laughs, turning visible again. “Must’ve been a glitch. Ha. Wow. So,  _ you’re _ Michael’s mom. And you’re the PTA president?” She’s weighing the consequences of just turning and high-tailing it back home. Caitlin, here, back in her life… Bree’s not sure she has the energy for this. 

“Yep, that’s me, in charge,” Caitlin brags, her chin pointed upward. “Wow, I had no idea you had a teenaged kid, Bree. I figured you were still doing your kooky free-spirit thing, you know, no attachments, no husbands.” She not-so-subtly angles her ginormous wedding ring in Bree’s direction. 

“Well, ah, I’m actually here for my little sister Naomi,” Bree says, feeling royally pissed off but trying not to show it. “Yeah, there’s a few things I wanted to bring up about the bake sale.”

“Oh, really?” Caitlin says, her eyes narrowing. “Well, great! The more the merrier. Come on in.” Bree follows her into the gym, twenty pairs of eyes watching her, feeling like she just walked into a warzone.

* * *

 

Toni tears through the basement, intent on her mission. Lounging in her beanbag chair, Naomi watches with moderate disinterest. “What are you looking for exactly?” she asks finally, picking at a hangnail. 

Toni glances up from the disarray, holding Adam’s old boxing gloves in one hand. “Something to help us with this bake sale ridiculousness,” she sighs, tossing the gloves over her shoulder and continuing to dig through the detritus of the lab-turned-bedroom. “Your dad has tons of weird gadgets down here. One of them’s bound to help us out.” 

“I don’t know,” Naomi muses, wincing as she tears the hangnail off. “Maybe we should just bake stuff the traditional way and not go rogue with some… what does Mom call them… ‘half-baked disaster gadget.’”

“Maybe I don’t want your input,” Toni snaps, holding up a silver remote-looking thingy. “Voila! This says it’s a temporal accelerator.” 

“What does that mean?”

“It speeds up time,” Toni says, clambering out of the mess she made. “Come on, Names. Let’s get cookin’.” 

Naomi rolls her eyes at the nickname but pushes herself to a standing position and joins Toni by the elevator. “Fine, we’ll do it your way,” she says as the doors slide open. “But, um, this isn’t gonna be like that one episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ where everything just kinda goes haywire, right?”

Toni shrugs. “Who knows? Let’s find out!”

* * *

 

Back at the school, Bree feels infuriated and is trying to hang onto her role as “respectable adult” instead of slipping back into “angry superpowered teenager.” (She’d hoped that after thirty all that teen angst just melted away. No such luck.) 

“A respected tradition,” Caitlin drones on at the front. “And it teaches children discipline, teamwork--”

“Wouldn’t they learn better teamwork doing something they actually care about?” Bree interrupts. When she notices the stares she’s getting, she raises her hand as if to ask for permission-- but she also just keeps talking. “Bake sales are overdone… um, excuse the pun. My sister and my cousin, they don’t care. And I’m willing to bet that a lot of other students just don’t care.”

Caitlin levels her gaze at Bree. “What about you,  _ Bree _ ? Do you care?”

Bree’s eyes widen. “Oh, I care loads,” she swears, lying through her teeth. “I’m all about bake sales. I can’t get enough cupcakes and madeleines. I mean, you know me, bake bake bake.” She offers up a cheesy grin. “But the kids, what exactly are they learning from this?”

“How to bake,” Caitlin says.

“Yeah, I mean… but how does that help them in life?” 

Caitlin’s wearing an all-too-familiar expression that loosely translated means  _ I’m going to murder you and wear your skin like a suit.  _ “It helps them learn  _ discipline _ and  _ teamwork _ ,  _ Bree _ ,” she says. “And if you were listening to me instead of so rudely interrupting--”

Bree interrupts again. “Kids can learn about discipline and teamwork doing other stuff, though,” she points out. “Heck, I learned about it going on dangerous missions and saving the world when I was fifteen. But that’s not the point. And aren’t you at all worried that forcing a bunch of young girls to bake dessert is just going to reinforce dangerous gender roles?”

“Boys do the baking too,  _ Bree _ .”

“Yeah, except I bet they don’t,” she says, standing up out of her seat and somewhat jostling the two mothers she squeezed between. “I mean, for one thing, look around this room. All moms. Where are the dads?”

“At work,  _ Bree _ .”

“What, these women don’t have jobs?” Bree counters. “And look, you can tell the boys to go home and bake stuff, but you know they’re just gonna push it off on their moms. That’s what my brothers would do. And even if they don’t, baking isn’t exactly a skill that young people need to know. Why not something useful, like taekwondo or math?” 

“We can’t have a ‘taekwondo math’ sale,  _ Bree _ .”

“No, but we could have a gala or something,” Bree points out. “Some kind of fundraiser where we invite a bunch of role models for the kids. It would be fun and it could encourage young girls to go into STEM, or to stand up for themselves… and kids would actually  _ enjoy it _ instead of being forced to participate.”

“Kids enjoy the bake sale,” Caitlin says.

A few mothers in the crowd mumble to each other. “My, ah, my daughter absolutely hates it,” one woman comments, half-heartedly raising her hand. A few other women nod in agreement. “To be honest, I’m kind of interested in this gala idea.”

“There’s no gala,” Caitlin practically growls. “We’re doing the bake sale because we’ve always done the bake sale.”

Bree doesn’t waver. “Well, maybe it’s time for a change.” 


	5. The Time Bubble

Naomi drops the last spoonful of cookie dough onto the baking sheet and turns to Toni. “You could’ve helped, you know,” she says. 

Toni waves the weird-looking remote at her. “I am helping, remember?” she says. She hits a button and for a second it’s like all the air in the kitchen ripples. “Okay, now put it in the oven.”

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “So what’s it supposed to do?”

“It speeds up the baking process,” Toni says, hopping down from her seat on the counter. “Those cookies should be done any second now.”

“They literally take fifteen minutes to cook  _ without _ your creepy technology,” Naomi points out. “There’s a chance you’re making this whole thing more complicated than it needs to be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Toni says. “All I did was alter the time-space coordinates in the kitchen to boost everything forward at an accelerated rate.” 

“Uh-huh,” Naomi says, raising her eyebrows. “And all I did was stir flour, eggs and butter together.  _ It’s not that hard _ .” 

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Okay, wait, what?” Naomi sways, feeling suddenly disorientated. “That’s weird… I thought I just did that.” 

Weirder still, Toni’s not right beside her anymore but suddenly perched on the counter on the other side of the kitchen. “Yeah, I don’t know,” Toni says, staring at her cousin. “I thought you already put the cookies in the oven, too.” 

“Deja vu?” Naomi suggests.

“Maybe,” Toni says, getting down from the counter. “Must be the cookie fumes getting to us.”

“Uh-huh,” Naomi says, raising her eyebrows. “Or maybe it’s  _ your _ half-baked disaster gadget messing with out heads.” 

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Oh my God,” she says, staring at Toni, who’s sitting on the counter once again. “Okay, this ain’t deja vu. I definitely already put the cookies in the oven.”

“Yeah, you did,” Toni says, starting to look worried. She glances down at the device in her hand. “They’re supposed to be done by now, if this thing speeds up time like it’s supposed to.”

“Give me that,” Naomi says, striding across the kitchen and yanking the remote away from Toni. “Whatever you did makes me keep repeating the same action over and over again.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Toni says. “That’s not how this invention  _ works _ .”

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Oh,  _ come on _ !”

* * *

 

“This is not how we do things,” Caitlin complains as Bree takes over the podium. “We have a  _ system _ , we have  _ rules _ . You don’t get to stand at the podium unless you’re the PTA president!” 

Bree flips her hair and turns so she doesn’t have to look at Caitlin’s sour expression. “I don’t care who the president is,” she says. “But I care about my sister and my cousin. And all the other kids here. Sort of. Why should we do the same thing as every year when we could do something actually fun?”

The PTA moms nod along, interested in Bree’s ideas. “No, no,” Caitlin says, waving her hands frantically. “Sit down,  _ Bree _ .”

“I say let her talk,” one of the moms says from the front row. “My kids hate the bake sale.”

“Yeah.”

“Mine too.” Across the room, people speak up in favor of Bree’s gala. 

Caitlin looks about ready to blow a fuse. “Fine,” she says, glaring daggers at Bree. “Fine! Have your little gala. The bake sale is cancelled. But you should know one thing,  _ Bree _ . You don’t want me as your enemy.” And she storms out of the gymnasium as dramatically as she possibly can. 

Bree sighs and sags against the podium. Going back to her old high school means going back to her old high school drama, even if she’s not a student, even if she’s supposed to be mature and above all this… 

Looking around at the room of PTA moms, though, Bree wonders if anyone ever really gets to be “above” any of it.

* * *

 

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Toni,  _ fix this _ ,” she cries. “Or I’m gonna be stuck putting these cookies in the oven until we graduate!”

“I’m trying,” Toni says, fiddling with the contraption. “I don’t get it, how could this have gone so wrong? Your dad built it! I thought he was supposed to be a genius.”

“Maybe it’s not one of his,” Naomi says. “Inventing things that go wrong is kind of the family business.”

“No, it’s gotta be your dad’s,” Toni says, showing her the label on the invention. “See? It’s got a D on it. D for Davenport.”

Naomi leans forward to look at the label and groans. “That’s Leo’s handwriting,” she says. “D for  _ Dooley _ . That’s why everything’s going wrong. I’m gonna kill my brother.”

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “What are we gonna do?”

At that moment (that infinite, eternal, infuriatingly unending moment), Skylar walks through the front door laden with shopping bags. “Hello!” she says cheerily, setting her bags on the coffee table. “How’s it going?”

Toni spins to face her. “We appear to be trapped in some kind of looping time bubble,” she says. “We keep doing the same thing over and over and we can’t get out.”

“That’s nice,” Skylar says, not really listening. “I found some really cute boots on sale at Kohl’s.” 

“Skylar!” Naomi says, trying to get to her. Apparently, the “time bubble” keeps them fixed in space, too. They can’t leave the kitchen. “Help us! It’s like  _ Groundhog Day _ over here.”

“Oh,” Skylar says, the severity of the situation sinking in. “That happened to me once! Not fun. It’s kind of like falling down an escalator, you know, it just never ends.” She focuses. “Okay, um…” She walks toward the kitchen and tries to step across the threshold between the living room and the linoleum floor of the kitchen. It doesn’t work; it’s like there’s an invisible forcefield blocking her. She tries punching through it, but nothing happens, just a few ripples in the air. “Hmm.”

“Try using your super speed,” Toni suggests. 

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Yeah,” she says. “Try going super fast.” 

“RIght, right,” Skylar says, giving them an odd look. “Here goes.” She backs up and then runs at regular speed toward the time bubble. She bounces off. “No, that doesn’t work.”

“Because that wasn’t your super speed,” Toni says, looking confused. “C’mon, stop goofing around and help us!”

“Uh-huh,” Skylar says, looking kind of shifty. “Let me try again.” Again, she runs at regular speed and bounces off the barrier. “Huh.”

“That’s not super speed.”

“Wow, gosh, you’re right,” Skylar says, scratching the back of her neck and looking guilty. “Weird!”

“Skylar, what’s going on?” Naomi asks before the timeline loops around again and she has to put the cookies in the oven. “Where’s your superspeed?” 

“I, um, I don’t have it,” Skylar explains, wringing her hands together. “Actually, I haven’t had it in years… I kind of sort of lost it when I had to save Bree’s life.”

“When was that?” Naomi squawks, sliding the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “And what does that mean? Why did you need to save Bree’s life?”

Skylar hesitates, looking guilty. “Look, I don’t want to get into it right now.” 

“We literally have all the time in the world,” Toni says, waggling the haywire invention. “Tell us.”

Skylar sighs. “Bree tried to touch this… weird space rock,” she says. “Back in our Elite Force days. And I zapped her to get her away from it, because it was going to kill her. But she got hurt too badly, and I needed to save her. So I touched the rock and transferred its healing energy through my body to her.”

“Gayyy,” Toni heckles.

“Anyway,” Skylar continues, “it worked, it saved her, but I lost some of my superpowers in the exchange. And… Bree got superpowers.”

Naomi rolls her eyes and slides the baking sheet into the oven, careful not to touch the hot metal rack. She shuts the oven and turns around, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. And she freezes, staring at Skylar in shock. “Bree has superpowers?” she says. “How come she never uses them?”

“She uses them all the time,” Skylar says, pushing futilely at the time bubble. “Proton rings, thermal touch… She just told you guys they were bionic abilities because she didn’t want you to know the whole story.”

“Why not?” Toni says, jumping down from the counter and whirling on Skylar. “Why can’t we know about this kind of stuff? We’re practically adults now. We can take care of ourselves.”

“Maybe make that argument when we’re not literally lost in time, Tone,” Naomi suggests in a mumble. 

“I probably shouldn’t have told you,” Skylar says. “Bree just… Bree didn’t want you to know because she’s kind of embarrassed. She got herself hurt trying to gain more powers. She’s embarrassed and also… Naomi, she didn’t want you to get any ideas about doing the same thing. Fiddling around with your own biology is really dangerous. And both of you are perfect just the way you are.” 

“Oh,” Naomi says in a small voice. “Well… still, she could’ve told us.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe my sister has superpowers.”

“Huh?” Toni says, glancing up at both of them. “Oh, I wasn’t listening. I think I figured out the fix.” 

“What is it?” Skylar asks from outside the kitchen.

“Well, it’s a bubble,” Toni says. “How do you get rid of a bubble? You pop it.”

“Yeah, but we don’t exactly have a big  _ time _ needle lying around,” Naomi snarks. “So how do we pop this  _ time _ bubble?”

“Like this,” Toni says, grabbing the meat tenderizer and smashing the faulty temporal accelerator to pieces. And suddenly, they can  _ feel  _ it. The oven clock races forward to catch up with the actual time, and Skylar’s able to get into the kitchen. Naomi sets the baking pan down on the counter and heaves a sigh of relief. “See? Fixed it.” 

“I’m never baking again,” Naomi sighs, leaving the kitchen ( _ finally _ ) and flopping down on the couch. “Somebody else put those cookies in the oven. I’m not risking getting stuck doing it again.” 

Skylar laughs and puts the baking sheet into the oven (once, just once) and then starts sweeping up the broken temporal accelerator while Toni goes to sit with her cousin. “I think we learned a valuable lesson today,” Toni says. 

“Don’t over-complicate the task at hand?” Skylar suggests.

“Bree has superpowers?” Naomi says.

“No,” Toni suggests. “If we’re gonna use technology to make our lives easier, just make sure it’s not something made by Leo.” 

Bree comes home from the PTA meeting to find Skylar, Naomi and Toni all tuckered out on the couch with a plate of fresh-baked cookies on the table in front of them. “Good news,” she announces. “The bake sale is off!”

Toni and Naomi glare at her before burrowing back into the couch.

Skylar just laughs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it so far! This is a continuation of "I Can Hear the Bells" and will (hopefully) be part of a larger series about Bree, Skylar, Naomi, Toni and Toni's mom Aunt Janice (Tasha's sister.) Let me know what you like, what you don't like, what you want to see more of, etc. in the review. Thank you for reading! I'll update with new chapters very soon.


End file.
